


To The Quiet End

by Maizzy



Series: Wander Silent [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Angst and Feels, Caper Fic, Catharsis, F/M, For Me, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Trespasser DLC, Rite of Tranquility, Trespasser Spoilers, at least
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-26 19:24:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5017330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maizzy/pseuds/Maizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>---</p><p>  <b>**I am an IDIOT and accidentally deleted this whole fic this morning! If you were subscribed and still want to be, you'll have to re-hit that subscribe button :( Sorry, sorry**</b></p><p>---</p><p>CONTAINS MAJOR TRESPASSER SPOILERS</p><p>That was where they all went wrong with these attempts to talk him out of his plans. They appealed to Solas the man, rather than Fen’Harel the leader. Fen’Harel was an idea - an action demanded by the missteps of others, and now missteps of his own. He had spent years lifting the chains of people who deserved better, and the price had been his own freedom. He had known it then, but he finally understood it now. Now was when he had something to lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ask Nicely

**Author's Note:**

> So I had the horrible, awful, fascinating thought that the best way for an inquisitor to really go deep-cover with a fade-walking, world-destroying ex-boyfriend would be for them to be made tranquil…

“Eres… I… are you quite sure this is the only way?”

“He’s watching, Cassandra. We’ve talked through this. Every night he’s there, but I haven't had an actual word from him since... for months."

Cassandra’s nose wrinkled in distaste, though she had long since learned that anything she had to say on the topic of the averted Qunari invasion was… well, “unwelcome” was a strong word, but accurate.

They’d had it out almost immediately after the Exalted Council had ended. Cassandra, being of the far saner opinion that Solas had to be stopped at any cost, had been more than a little frustrated by Eres’ stubborn insistence that his mind could be changed. Interesting words had been said that night by both of them; including, but not limited to: “close-minded”, “childish”, “disloyal”, “idiotic” and Eres’ personal favorite: “lovesick”. When that one had slipped its way from Cassandra’s mouth, Eres had slammed her dagger through the table top and stormed out. In under half an hour Cassandra had come to apologize. That was when the real conversation about what they planned to do next had begun. 

Leliana had joined them after a time, but only _for_ a time. The few weeks she had managed to scrounge together into some semblance of a break from running the human faith had been a blessing _._ Or at least that was how Cassandra had put it. Terms with anything even remotely to do with faith had long since been stricken from Eres’ vocabulary. Faith was a luxury for people that hadn’t met two of their gods in the flesh and learned of the devastation caused by the others.  

Cassandra laid a hand on Eres’ shoulder, squeezing a little less than gently. 

Lace turned back to the fire, trying - and failing- to hide the desperate worry she'd been radiating all evening. 

“Please,” Cassandra murmured. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Every alternative is worse,” Eres echoed, drawing on words once spoken to her to justify a different important and terrible choice. “I really do, Cassandra. It will work. I know it.”

The plans were in place. There was no turning back from it now.

 

—

 

“Word for you.”

“The location of the Inquisitor?”

The scout paused, meeting Solas’ eyes for a moment before staring back down at the ground. 

Solas tried to relax himself, loosening the tense set of his shoulders and shifting his weight back from the balls of his feet. These modern elves that followed him did not quite seem to know how to compose themselves in his presence. There was awe, always plenty of awe, usually accompanied by some semblance of hero worship. Both made Solas’ insides writhe with guilt whenever he let himself watch them watch him a little too long. 

He had never lied to them, but then, they had not taken the time to understand what his plans truly meant. They heard only of the magic returning and the second rise of the elves, and were utterly blinded by their need to see this world corrected.

He would not purposefully trick them into serving his cause.

He was not a monster. 

“In… a way,” the scout finally said. 

Solas walked towards the little man, reaching for the small box he held. 

It had been more challenging than he had expected to keep track of Eres the past handful of months. He supposed it shouldn’t have taken him by quite this much surprise, given what he knew of her from their all too brief time together, but it had. 

He had expected her to keep her forces strong by remaining the head of a full-fledged Inquisition, but no. In hindsight that could’ve been more easily predicted if he had thought on Eres as a person, rather than planning on a logical next step by a less-invested opponent. He had also assumed that she would lean upon the Nightingale Divine for help in organizing whatever information needed to be gathered, but that had also been a nearly perfect dead-end. Eres was laying her moves out carefully. So carefully, that the little intelligence he had gathered told him next to nothing. She _was_ laying out moves, though. Of that he was certain.

The most solid glimpses he’d gotten into how she lived had been stolen from nights spent in her dreams. There he could see her relive memories as her mind worked through the troubles that plagued her. More often than not, she’d had nightmares. More often than not, they’d been his fault. By far the most common and most disturbing dream she had was one born more of prediction, rather than any sort of trauma currently happening to her. As the veil dissolved away in the night sky over head, she would turn and stare directly at him, night after night. The last time he had slipped into that particular dream, she had smiled. 

That smile had haunted him far more than it should have. Eres had never had control over her dreams, but that one small expression had warned him that perhaps there were more than few things he had missed in the three years since they had been safe in each other’s company. 

Since that night, he’d been unable to get a proper fix on where she might be in the world. It seemed to have been managed by sleep deprivation - a notion that knotted his guilt ever tighter. She would not have been driven to such lengths if he could bring himself to leave her be. Though, he supposed, the fault could not entirely be laid at his feet. As long as she looked for him, he would have to keep a watch for her too. 

Solas examined the box he had taken from the scout, earning an odd sort of lurch in his gut when saw her messy scrawl of handwriting on the paper covering it. 

 

_Solas,_

 

_Ask nicely._

 

 _Ar lath ma,_ _Vhenan._

_\- Eres_

 

Ask nicely? Such a brief message. 

In months past, she had sent pages of words meant to sway him, ranging from anger to love in the span of a sentence. Endearments written with a fury so fierce that the quill had ripped through the page, followed by censures smudged into illegibility where the ink had been dappled by too many tears. 

They all ended the same way, though. Always.

Each letter was a hammer blow to his chest, and yet he could never bring himself to leave them unread. Not when he could picture her sitting down to an ink well and  paper to trace out her thoughts for him; not when he could almost see her handing the letter off to one of her nameless scouts and sending them with a few whispered words to a place far enough and strange enough that Solas’ own agents couldn’t help but take notice; not when this was the last form of actual contact he could have with her. 

Carefully, he cracked the wax bearing the seal of the Inquisitor and peeled back the paper surrounding the box. He took a moment to smooth the sheet out between his palms, indulging himself in imagining her hand pressed over the very same page, before he went to place it with the other letters from her.

The scout was still standing at the foot of the dais that housed Solas’ cobbled-together study. 

“You may go,” he said, waving a dismissive hand.

“The location…Fen’harel, Sir,” the Scout stammered. “We found it in, well… we found it in Solas.”

Solas snorted, momentarily caught off guard. Eres had always had a rather intriguing sense of humor. He was willing to bet that she had specifically sent whatever agents she had to that place only to know that she had potentially earned a laugh from him… And to make clear the message that she would not be there herself. 

“Thank you. You may go,” Solas said again, turning his attention back to the box.

He waited until he heard the thud of the door behind the retreating scout before opening the box and shaking a small crystal into the palm of his hand. It was about two inches long and thrummed with a tinny sort of magic that was entirely foreign to him. How strange. 

_Ask nicely._

He went back over to Eres’ letter and turned it over a few times, looking closely for further hints. There were none to be seen. Restlessly curious, he tried sending a tendril of mana at the small gem, but succeeded in doing nothing but creating a little energetic static that made his teeth feel funny. 

Solas sat down in his chair now, settling in for a more thorough study of the little purple thing. He tried a number of different elements on it, frustrated when not even a few of his more interesting spells had an effect. 

_Ask nicely._

He sighed. He was going to have to try it, if only to give Eres the mental nod that she was due if this ended up being an elaborate and strange prank. 

“Please?” Solas hazarded at the little crystal. 

“ _Finally_. I was beginning to think you’d haul off and smash the stone to bits before giving in and following instructions,” the now brightly glowing stone quipped from the palm of Solas’ hand. “Hello, old friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is meant to be a sort of catharsis for me after playing (and losing my gd mind) over the Trespasser DLC. If you want something fluffier, you'd probably do better with reading one of my other fics. Angst, my friends, angst everywhere... but with a plot! And maybe even a little fluff and dark humor.
> 
> Looking to make it about 6-8 chapters. I already have the whole thing planned out aaaand yup :D
> 
> Thanks for picking this sucker up!


	2. Fucking Redemption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things... get a bit darker.

“Dorian?” Solas breathed. He dropped the stone on the wooden table and stared at it.

“In the flesh. Or rather, in the resonance created by vibrating two frequencies of alternating will, if we want to get technical about things. But come come, semantics are not why we are speaking at the present.”

“And why is it that we _are_ speaking?”

“Rude. Three years and this is your idea of a proper greeting?"

This little show of flippant disregard was no doubt meant to act as a gateway to their conversation - an intentional reenactment of the sorts of talks they’d had so many times while wandering Thedas together. Solas heard that familiar echo, but he also heard the strain hiding under it. This was not a talk Dorian very much wanted to be having. Strange that Eres would go to this much trouble to put them into contact if it was to be such a burden for everyone involved.

“I assume there is a reason for this conversation?” Solas sighed, poking at the gem with a finger, nudging it back and forth as he waited for Dorian to reply.

“Again: rude.”

“Does she expect you to sway me where she could not?”

“Are we not even speaking her name now?”

Solas grit his teeth as his fist clenched on the table.

“Dorian.”

“ _Eres_ does not expect me to be able to talk you out of your lunacy, no. She merely thinks that there may come a time when you will be grateful to have the option of getting in contact with me.”

“Oh? Am I to take this as some sort of threat?”

Dorian stayed quiet for a time longer than the storm of emotion in Solas’ chest could handle. Just as he was debating trying to cut off this magical chat, Dorian said, “In a way, I suppose.”

Gone was the faux-campiness, and, for a moment, Solas let himself feel actual fear over what Eres had planned. It was not so much the thought that she might actually be able to stop him; his plans were, after all, already in motion. No, the alarm came from the possibility of having to watch her try and fail, and then having to live with the consequences. 

“Tell me what you know. Please,” Solas said quietly, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair. Dorian would not oblige, but he could not resist asking just the same.

“I can’t do that. Keep the crystal close. I won’t contact you unless you reach out to me first. And Solas?”

Solas jerked his chin for Dorian to continue, unable to trust his own voice with his throat so constricted from feelings he was not allowed to have. It was a moment before he remembered that Dorian could not actually see him. He opened his eyes and said, “yes?”

“You don’t have to do this. Eres is not the only one that believes you are better than this.”

The gem’s light flickered out.

That was where they all went wrong with these attempts to talk him out of his plans. They appealed to Solas the man, rather than Fen’Harel the leader. Fen’Harel was an idea - an action demanded by the missteps of others, and now missteps of his own. He had spent years lifting the chains of people who deserved better, and the price had been his own freedom. He had known it then, but he finally understood it now. Now was when he had something to lose.

\---

Tension ratcheted up in her chest, blocking her breath. Eres ducked out of the tent, but drew herself up short before walking over to where it would happen. Fuck. For all she had said to Cassandra about this being the only way, she had really,  _really_ hoped that she would’ve been able to come up with something better.

“I need a minute,” Eres practically gasped as Cassandra stepped out of the tent behind. The seeker dipped her head in acknowledgement and changed her trajectory to take herself over to their small stock of supplies. It was an exercise in futility to count them all again - Cassandra had been ruthless about doing it every night they had traveled together, but at least it was a productive way of dealing with the stress. Probably healthier than Eres’ way of dealing with it; wallowing in the worry and endlessly plotting couldn’t be the best way to stay sane with all that was happening, though it had hopefully been helpful. She had needed to feel like she was doing something; needed to have that sense of control that came with always being one step ahead of everyone else in the room. It was all she could do.

Eres walked a few paces away into the woods and sunk down against a tree, gripping her arm around her chest. If she was lucky, she would remain one step ahead throughout all of this. Eres couldn’t really see how Solas could possibly predict her next move. It was such a base betrayal of everything he believed in, that the thought that she would willingly sever away a part of herself would likely never even occur to him.

Tranquility.

A frisson of fear darted through her every time she let herself think the word. They had been planning it for months after the idea had originally surfaced, but that hadn’t made it any easier - only abstracted the concept until the times when Eres let her mind touch on the reality.

He was never going to forgive her.

But if it could save the world - save him - how could she not?

She had long ago given up the idea that she was not a chess piece to fate. This was her role; she would play out this last grand move and let the other pieces fall where they may. If she had to lose every part of herself to make it happen, so be it.

“ _FUCK_ no,” growled a voice from across the camp. Apparently Cassandra had taken it upon herself to prep him.

Eres’ breathing hitched and then took off at triple time. Oh gods.

 _No_. No gods.

They were all just people. _He_ was just a person. For any of this to work, she had to put her faith in that at least.

She stood, but had to lean back against the tree again. Dark spots flashed on the edges of her sight, her head spun. If she could just breathe fully again then… then.. Then she would just go and cut away everything that made her who she was.

Suddenly there was dirt and grass clenched between her fingers. Her knees hit ground as terror pressed her to the earth.

The scariest part of it all was knowing that she didn’t even have to be “strong enough” to do this. This would be the easiest thing in the world once she went through with it. The fear would be gone, the worry, the concern, the sharp stabs of love that still had their claws dug into her even now - all of it - gone with one simple press of lyrium to her mind.

“Eres!” A voice drifted through the shaking sobs she only now realized she was making. A hand touched her shoulder and a prosthetic arm clunked to the ground near where her head hung. “Eres, come on, talk to me. Everything’s gonna be ok.”

No. Nothing could be ok after all of this. Not for her. That wasn’t the point, after all. The point was for the world to be ok. Eres, though? Eres was about to end.

She wished she could have had a chance to say a proper goodbye to him. Hell, she wished a lot of things. 

“Sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry,” she mumbled to Lace.

The ex-scout stroked her back, whispering soft assurances under her breath. Eres slid her legs back under to her and tried to struggle to her feet. It was harder than it should’ve been now that she was down an arm. She hadn’t gotten used to it, even after all of this time. Her instincts still screamed that she should be able to reach out a hand to push herself up, but instead she flailed, having to manually remind herself the new way she had to stand.

“You want to talk about it?” Lace asked. She peered up at Eres from dark-ringed eyes. The strain was showing on all of them, but it was always worst to see it on the ex-scout that had managed to stay cheerful for far longer than either Cassandra or Eres.

“What do you think?”

Lace tried a half-hearted snort as Eres leaned up against her. “I’ll admit, I would’ve been a little surprised if you had said yes.”

“Don’t tell Cassandra, Eres mumbled, swiping her dirty sleeve across her cheek to wipe away any evidence of tears.

“Nah, I don’t think her worrying over you more would help anything.”

“Thanks. I guess… I guess it’s time.”

Lace’s cool facade crumbled as she looked up at Eres. “I guess it is.”

Eres took the prosthetic from Harding to give herself an excuse to look away. She slotted it over where her forearm used to be and gave the mechanical fingers an experimental flex to make sure they were operating correctly. Then the time for stalling was over.

She slipped her arm off of Lace’s shoulders and walked slowly, steadily across the campsite.

“Are you _fucking_ serious?” Samson demanded. He was seated, unbound, and glaring at Cassandra when Eres walked up. He immediately turned his furious stare on her instead. “What is this raw sack of shit this one’s trying to tell me?”

“Probably the plan,” Eres said, cocking a hip as she drew to a stop. It seemed to help keep her legs from shaking.

“This is what you lot have been locked up talking about for months? No. I won't do it. Go dig up Rutherford from wherever you dumped him."

"Aww, caring about me now, Raleigh? Sweet," Eres tried to purr. It came off a little too high-pitched to be convincing.

For a moment, Samson's sneer faltered.

 _Oh._  

"You wanted me redeemed, Inquisitor. Job well fucking done."

Eres and Cassandra exchanged a look. This was news to both of them, though they probably shouldn't have been so surprised. They had brought Samson along as a prisoner, originally, after Dagna had finished her experiments. The logic at the time had been that they could potentially use his abilities to smite away magic from any of Solas' agents that they came across... and that leaving him to wander free after everything seemed like a terrible idea. Cullen had wanted to kill him; Varric wanted nothing to do with him - damage to Kirkwall or no... It hadn’t left them with too many options.

Admittedly, Samson had spent less time in chains that out of them over the past year, but still. He was their prisoner. Even if he did eat with them, fight with them, travel with them, he wasn't exactly free to leave.

"Great time to grow a conscience," Eres ground out through her teeth. "Look, Raleigh, I’m pretty sure that the fate of the world is a little more important than your morals."

"Too many people have told me I was 'saving the world' by helping them. To hell with all of them and to hell with you if you think I'm gonna buy that line another time. Get your seeker bint to do it if you're so keen. It's what they do, right? Heard you talking."

Eres tried to exchange another look with Cassandra, but the seeker wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“We… we should talk,” Cassandra murmured at her feet.

“Fuck,” Eres hissed out. “Really? Because I was under the impression we had already wasted an entire year talking.”

Now. She needed it done now, before the momentum of her resolve was lost.

“Eres… I… please. Talk to me. Otherwise I do not know if I can do this.”

Eres blew out a long, shaky breath. “Fine. But tonight, Cassandra. It has to be tonight. He’ll have gotten the crystal by now.”

\---

“Sir, word just came in. The last of the devices have been activated.”

Solas stared down at the still-dark message crystal and said, “Thank you.”

“Orders?”

He couldn't tear his eyes from it.

"Sir?"

So soon. He had not expected his plans to come to fruition quite this early. He had hoped to say a proper goodbye to her. One last time at least.

The scout coughed, and he watched her shift foot to foot out of the corner of his eye.

"It is time," Solas said, forcing himself to look away from the crystal. "Spread the word. We move on Skyhold by the week’s end."

She was never going to forgive him.

But he was not doing this to be right - he was doing this to save them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ummm... we're getting to the tranquility bits. I really... I just really love Eres, guys. I wanted to give her her due before jumping in and taking it all away (even if she is such a little ball of stress right now). I'm gonna cry so hard writing the stuff that comes next T_T


	3. Liar, Liar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well hello there! Sorry for the long gap between this chapter and the last! Work was kicking my proverbial ass and I had 0 time to write the past few weeks where I wasn't loopy from stress. 
> 
> Also holy crap! Thank you so much for all of the messages! They mean a lot to me <3  
> 

Eres stomped ahead, trusting that, despite the silence behind her, Cassandra was still following. The fact that this little sidebar was happening at all was beyond belief. Samson’s reason was understandable, even if she didn't like it. Cassandra’s? Mired in unnecessary emotion and fully frustrating. This was her plan too. 

Eres walked past the tents, past the line of light spilling into the trees from their small campfire and past the point where she could hold the fraying bundle of her temper together any longer. 

“ _What_  is wrong with you?” She snapped, wheeling on Cassandra.

Cassandra took a step back, tensing, shock registering plainly over her face. 

Eres pressed her hand to her eyes, rubbing hard until she saw stars. 

“Sorry,” she breathed. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes you did.”

Eres sighed. “Yes, I did. Look, I don’t need more reasons not to do this. I’m barely holding it together as it is.”

“I disagree.”

Eres dropped the hand and stared up at her. “What?”

“You don’t believe in the Maker and your own gods were pretenders. No spirit of faith would… It has long been on my mind, but I had always assumed… We have never talked about what happens after you find Solas.” 

No, they hadn’t, and things now would be a damned sight easier if Cassandra could’ve kept up that unspeaking policy for just a few minutes more. It shouldn’t matter what happened afterwards. It  _didn’t_  matter what happened to her afterwards. The plan would either work or it would not. If one fucking person in this fucking camp could pull themselves together long enough to do their motherfucking job, then she could let go of it all - stop being the stop-gap between what had to be done and their frail little sensibilities. They should be begging her to save the world again. That’s how it had been all along, but now that she was fully onboard they backed off? 

Unfair.

“You are my dearest friend, Eres. We have been through so much together over the years... I cannot condemn you to this fate.”

So unfair. 

Cassandra might’ve been able to accept it - might’ve been able to play along and act shocked if the time came that she would see Eres’ soulless body again, but clearly that was not the case now that she had to do the rite herself. It was understandable, to an extent. The blood of a friend was an easier sight to see on any hands that weren’t your own. 

“Please say something,” Cassandra requested quietly.

The lie came more easily than it should have. “Solas will bring me back.” 

The sharp tang of betrayal replaced the last syllable that rolled off of her tongue, but Eres forced herself to look Cassandra dead in the eyes. It wasn’t the lie that was hard - it was the concern for her friend, should Cassandra ever find out that “Eres” had survived the upcoming ordeal. It would break her. Broken was better than gone, however. If Cassandra heard what she needed to hear, then she could still have a chance of seeing that dark future. Grim, but a better fate for the seeker than a sudden end. After all, Eres wasn’t doing this to be right - she was doing it to save them. 

“You know this for sure?”

Eres sucked in a breath before plowing on, “He’s more powerful than you or I can even understand, and that power is directly tied to the fade. He can fix it - me.” She had tried out that thought herself not so long ago, but it had fallen short of comfort once she let herself remember what he had said about seeing her as practically tranquil when they first met. If normal people seemed unsettling, true tranquil must have been horrifying for him, and yet he had never lifted a finger to bring them back to themselves. And he would’ve. That much she knew to be true. If it had been within his capabilities, he would never have let such a restriction of the self stand. 

No, the comfort in that thought had been short-lived.

 It might just work long enough to trick Cassandra into doing what she needed to do, though.

“He told you that?”

No. 

“Yes.”

Cassandra swiped at her eyes and spoke quietly, mumbling half to herself, “And he would save you, wouldn’t he? This plan was predicated on his inability to leave you be.”

Even though it was rhetorical, Eres felt obliged to add on another “Yes” - a final nail in the neatly packaged crate of lies that was going to save her friend’s life.

  


-

  


“It won’t bite, Magister.”

Dorian closed the remaining few inches of space between his fingers and the smooth sheet of glass standing before him. The last time he had touched one of these rather magnificent constructs, the effervescent magic flying wild fairly gusted him off of his feet. Not so here today, which was exactly what they needed to remedy.

“Are you so sure?” He asked over his shoulder as he allowed his hand to drop once again. “Knowing who exactly it is that owns these, biting could be the least of our troubles.”

“True,” Lady Morrigan agreed, walking up to stand at his side. “My mother would have been fond of such little traps and safe guards. If he is who he claims to be-“

“He is,” Dorian interrupted.

“Well, our task will have to be approached with a measure more caution in that case.”

“Caution, dear lady, was never off of the table. Have you any idea if he could be alerted to the unlocking of an eluvian?”

“None, though ’tis doubtful that one such as he would keep a watch over every far-flung mirror.”

“Excellent. We shall have to work off of that assumption, then. I don’t suppose you’d know an easy way to unlock this one?”

Morrigan reached out a hand and fisted the air. The little hairs on Dorian’s arms stood on end as power glowed from her clenched fist, but nothing else at all happened. 

Morrigan sighed. “Apparently not.”

“It would’ve made our lives far too easy if that had actually worked,” Dorian reassured. “Still, that does throw our deadline into a harsher light. Solas received the crystal, which means Eres is… she’ll be in Minrathous any day now.

  


-

“Just do it now. Away from Lace." Eres pulled the pouch that held the small chunk of raw lyrium from her belt. Best to jump on it before Cassandra had too much time to think through what Eres had said. 

They had no plans to heat the lyrium - there was no need to literally brand her face. After all of the revelations that had come with the removal of her vallaslin, Eres took at least a bit of comfort in that. The "Ritual" wasn't so much of a rite when the seekers performed it. The inductees, at least before Cassandra had assumed command, had never even known what was being done to them. Apparently the common practice had even been to do it while they slept. 

It was to be practically painless.

Cassandra's eyes stayed fixed on the pouch, welling again with tears. 

"He'll save me," Eres urged again, watching her own hand shake where she held it outstretched. 

For several heart beats, nothing happpened. Then Cassandra's hands closed around Eres' and squeezed tight. 

"Alright," she whispered, pulling back and accepting the bag of lyrium.

Eres blinked rapidly a few times before leaping on Cassandra and pulling her into a tight hug. "Thank you," she mumbled into the seeker's shoulder, trying to hide away the clash of gratitude and horror that had seized her at Cassandra's surrender.

 Cassandra clutched her back, hugging so tightly that she drove the air from Eres' lungs.

"I will miss you, my friend."

Eres tried to choke out a laugh, but it sounded a little too much like a sob. This was the part where she was supposed to grumble something snarky back at Cassandra to play down the situation, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not now. Not in this last moment.

They drew back and stood looking at each other, neither eager to make the next move. 

Eventually, Eres sank to her knees.

Cassandra inhaled a shuddering breath before reciting, “Though all before you is shadow, yet shall the Maker be your guide. You shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond. For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light, and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost.

"I'm so sorry", Eres gasped as Cassandra’s words ended.

She squeezed her eyes shut just as her friend pressed the lyrium to her head. 

Just like that, she was gone.

  


-

  


Some people would prefer to pass without ever having known their end was at hand. Eres was not one of those people. If she was to fall, Eres would want to fall with eyes open. To have the opportunity to tie away unresolved business; to say a final good bye to those she loved. 

Solas knew this. 

He also knew that it was not the only reason he was laying down that night with the intention of hunting her in the fade. 

These past months of barely catching more than a glimpse of her were trying, but surely by now the sleep-deprivation she had been using as a way of hiding from him would be catching up with her. And if not today, then tomorrow. She would not make it an entire week before she would have to sleep.

And then… then he would let himself be weak again. He would go to her, warn her, give her full use of the eluvians to get where she needed to go. To family, to friends; if he caught her early enough, perhaps both. She had not lived well in the time that remained - too busy hunting him and working at her own too-late plans to stop him. He had unintentionally consumed the time meant to be a calm bookend to her life. 

He could give her the chance to make up for that, at least in some small measure. He had to give her the chance to make up for that. 

Solas closed his eyes and let himself fall asleep. 

  


  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahaaa. My heart hurts.  
> 


	4. The First Night

 

When last they had spoken, he’d had a plan, a script - some means of keeping their conversation along a directed path. It had not been easy. There was no reality in which a conversation such as that could have been easy. Even then, though, firmly armed with his conversational scaffolding, he had slipped. The “vhenan” flew from his lips, left to hang in the strict five paces he had kept between them the entire time they talked. He quickly followed it by explaining they did not have much time.

That had been a lie. 

He could have held the disintegrating anchor together longer than he had. The truth was that he had been trying to end the conversation before it got even further away from him. The truth was that spending any more time in her presence was unbearable; that the weight of his reality threatened to break him as she once again became more than an abstract. Decidedly not that his magic could not hold on any longer. 

Then, despite his careful planning and best intentions, all it had taken for everything to become perfectly, painfully real once again had been her strangled cry as he had let the anchor burn freely once more. That had brought him to his knees. 

She had said, “Var lath vir suledin.” 

And he had lied, “I wish it could.”

Because he already knew her words were true, and because he very much wished they weren’t. It would have been kinder in the long run. 

This time he did not have anything remotely resembling a plan, and he feared that the end results of their conversation would be far worse than a stolen kiss meant to give comfort.

Solas drifted, waiting. 

He would see her soon. 

He could say nothing that had not already been said. He would have to make only his offer of safe travel and let her decide what she wanted to do next. 

Perhaps she would try to kill him. Her world was in its death throes - there was little else she could do. He would not blame her for trying. 

So he drifted, floating in a carefully crafted blank space of the fade. He had to keep on the alert, to feel for the gentle vibrations that rippled out from where Eres slipped into dreams. Now that her anchor was lost, tracking her was significantly more difficult. Gone was his direct connection to her, but replacing it was the effect she had on the world around her. She was an important figure, and as such the spirits pressed in close, drawn like metal to magnet. The fade itself bent and twisted to reflect things that would not leave her mind. 

It had been how he had placed spies near her in the past, and how he had indulged his weakness in keeping watch over her while she slept. 

So he drifted, waiting. 

 

—

 

A scream tore through the quiet camp, sending Samson leaping to his feet. Fucking high-pitched screeches. Normally he maintained a certain level of ambivalence towards any given thing happening with his supposed captors, but who could ignore a scream like that? No one. At the very least a sane person would have to go and give them a piece of their mind for fucking up his beauty rest.

He was barely even sane anymore to begin with, so the Inquisitor and the Seeker, or whoever it was that had suddenly turned into a goddamned banshee would be getting a sight more than just a piece of his mind. Too fucking alarming that scream was. Especially because he had never heard either of them even come close to making a sound in that octave. Balls like steel on the both of them. Big, brassy ones. Shined up from so very many night spent plotting their little plots and polished from having “saved the world” once before.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dwarf's head pop out of a tent flap. They exchanged a look, a brief moment of agreement before she dashed out and joined him in running into the woods where the inquisitor and the seeker had disappeared not ten minutes before. 

The sight that greeted Samson drew him up short. 

Turning the inquisitor tranquil had always been an fucking awful plan in his book. From what he had heard of their chatter, it was supposed to be a part of some daft attempt to dodge the not-god that had been fucking the inquisitor all throughout Samson's time with Corypheus. 

Gutless cunt was apparently stalking her in her dreams.

Gutless cunt was apparently also trying to end the world. 

Which made the scene before him even more difficult to process.

The inquisitor was on her knees, back to where he and the dwarf stood. In front of the inquisitor, the seeker stood staring, bathed in an eerie blue light that lit up her wide, horrified eyes.  

Slowly, Samson circled around them. 

The Inquisitor's face was _glowing._  

Runic... tattoos? cracked through her skin, sending light out in sharp flares that he had to squint at to be able to see properly. 

Her eyes were completely swallowed by the blue magic. 

"Well... shit," he growled, failing to not betray any of the fear and concern that were coursing through his veins.

"Eres!" The dwarf screeched, and he jumped. Great. Another banshee to contend with.

The dwarf rushed forward and dropped to her knees next to the elf. Seemed to be a lot of that going around lately - this screeching and knee-dropping business. Maybe he should give it a go. See if that _ever at all would even in the slightest measure help the situation._

"I do not know what happened! I performed the rite as I have before, then this!" The seeker gestured with a shaking hand towards the kneeling inquisitor. 

The very same inquisitor that had not even reacted to the dwarf clutching at her shoulders. She still glowed, though. Seemed to be real good at that glowing thing.  

"Like a damned torch," Samson mumbled under his breath. "What are those markings?"

"The well," the seeker breathed, stumbling back a step. 

And then it all crashed together. 

Fucking magic. 

 

—

 

Eres did not appear. 

Perhaps he should stay. Sleep a little while longer. Perhaps this was some attempt to change her sleep cycle and dream while he was busy attending to other things? That felt like the sort of thing she would do. 

Abandoning his watch now invited the possibility of missing her.

A little while longer. He would stay a little while longer. 

 

—

 

“Hey! Nod if you can hear me!” Samson bellowed into the inquisitor’s glowing, pointed ear. 

Her head swiveled and he leaped back, nearly crashing into the seeker. The empty, blazing spheres where the Inquisitor’s eyes should have been tracked his movement. 

“Eres?” the dwarf whispered. The flaming eyes scanned over to rest on her instead and the dwarf visibly gulped.

Nothing happened. 

“Right, so you _can_ hear us,” Samson groused. “What about standing? Think you can manage that?”  

The face turned back to him, lighting up the front of his chainmail like a search beacon. The inquisitor blinked once, twice, and rose to her feet.  

“Good,” the seeker exhaled behind him. “That is something.”

“Not much of something if all she can do is sodding blink. What were you planning for her?”

The seeker wrung her hands and glanced between him and the Inquisitor. “I… she..” She sighed. “She was supposed to make her way into Minranthous. We had-have a project underway there that would have allowed her to confront Fen’Harel.” 

“He the same one as this Solas she’s been banging on about?”

Samson watched the dwarf’s eyebrows pull down into a frown as the seeker replied, “I suppose. Though I personally choose to not-“

“Didn’t ask for your life story. Just tell me the situation,” Samson interrupted. 

The seeker glared. “Fine,” she enunciated, a measure of her usual swagger pouring back into her stance. “Eres was to meet up with a friend of ours. She had written out extensive instructions for herself in case tranquility interfered with her memory of the plan. 

“I’ll go get them. Maybe if she reads them now it’ll help.” The dwarf trailed off, turned and jogged back towards the tents.

“Tranquil don’t lose their memories,” Samson tossed out as he watched the dwarf's retreating back. 

“I know that!” The seeker snapped. “Eres thought it… prudent to have reminders for herself of why she was doing what she was doing.”

“Well, I’m thinking we have more problems on our hands than missing some feelings.”

“We?”

Samson cringed. Bad choice of words. Very bad. And yet… “You’re in over your head here. That’s plain to see.”

“I am still missing the part where this became a ‘we’. _You_ are a prisoner. _You_ said you wanted no part of this plan.” 

“And now _I’m_ saying that you’re in over your head! You were the moment you thought a fucking tranquil could make it through Tevinter on her own! Maker’s balls. What would have happened if she had come across some bandits? You can’t just turn them loose like that.”

He felt the urge to press a finger to his twitching eye. Fucking irresponsible is what it was. Putting the fate of the world in the hands of a tranquil. Tranquil were idiotic kittens, all blank stares and passive responses. The inquisitor, glowing or no, was tranquil and he was not about to let another shitty thing happen to one of them while he could stop it. Too many regrets were tied up in thoughts like that for it to ever be something he could let pass him by. 

The dwarf reappeared, holding a small, leather-bound journal. “Should I give it to her?”

 “I suppose,” the seeker said. Her nostrils flared as she turned back to Samson. “If you are so full of genius ideas about our plan, what now? What do you propose?”

“Someone’s going with her for starters.” 

“Oh? And who is that? The Dread Wolf might not enjoy stalking my dreams so much as he does Eres’, but he knows I am with her.”

The dwarf spun from where she had pushed the journal into the Inquisitor’s hand. “Me.”

Samson sneered. “Think you’ll be treated as more than Carta garbage in Tevinter, do you?”

Her face turned red, but Samson realized half a second too late that it was not from embarrassment. A dagger went sailing past his ear and thwacked into the trunk of the tree behind him. 

“Is that supposed to prove a point? Throw all the bits of metal you want, dwarf, doesn’t mean the Imperium wants anything to do with you and your magicless species.”

“Oh and what?” She snapped. “You think a washed-up templar is going to have a better time of it?”

“I’m human, at the least. Won’t turn so many heads.”

The seeker froze. “Wait, what? You think I will allow _you_ to have the inquisitor at your mercy while she is… indisposed?”

“I’m not seeing that you have a lot of other options, love.”

“ _Fuck_ no,” the scout growled. “I can handle it.”

The seeker nodded in angry agreement with her. 

“ _You_ don’t know the first thing about getting a tranquil to do what you want them to do,” Samson pointed out. Maker. Why was he arguing this? He stared back at the quietly shining inquisitor. She hadn’t moved a muscle. Her eyes had never once left him. They might not know much about tranquil, but he certainly didn’t know the first thing about elvhen magic-filled, animated bodies. 

As much as he hated to think it, he had sort of grown a little fond of the inquisitor. Balls. She had balls. And if the world was really on the line… they needed him. Fucking hell. They needed him and they would eventually come around to seeing that. 

_Fuck._

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to write Solas like, freaking the fuck out with worry over his impromptu idea to speak with Eres one last time. Hopefully that worked?? 
> 
> Also if you don't like Samson.... sorry hahah. He's not going to be the only POV in this story obviously, but just as obviously now, he IS one of them.


End file.
